I can't stand obnoxious sport fans. Being that of the Yankees makes it worse.

Dude, I was at the light next to McDonaldsin my dad's Corvette, and some loser had just got off work. He got into his crappy Geo, and pulled it up next to me. The light turned green, and I blew his ass away! I am so awesome at racing!

But WestNile, any Yankee fan will tell you that Sox fans have no right to complain, considering the Sox are 2nd in payroll. Of course, the fact that the Yanks are a mere $60M higher than the Sox slips their mind...that's my entire Padres team right there.

Cheering for the Yankees is like cheering for the house in Blackjack. Pointless, gutless, and about as meaningful as beating my 1-year old in chess.

I always enjoy the years that the Yankees spend all that money and still can't win the title (like last year). I think if I lived in New York City, I wouldn't be a Yankees fan because it is just boring. What is the fun of having your team win all the time? It just loses all meaning. This is all coming from a Saints football fan, though, where you really appreciate the years you can actually get in the playoffs. I really think that baseball needs a salary cap to give some other teams a chance. I guarantee you that the Yankees wouldn't win all the time if they actually had to watch what they spend.

SOUR GRAPES. That's what it's all about if your're a fan of a team that can't handle the fact that the Yankee's front office goes after and get's the best talent available, and WIN.

TALENT, and professionalism, is what win's world series.

At this point, and I heard this same comment echoed on a sports radio talk show last week is this; The Yankee's ARE a PRO team, they come to the game ready to play as professionals. The Red Sox, they are like a college frat house full of individuals with the personality quirks and they are not up to the task of winning this series against the Yankees.

It's NOT the Yankee's fault the Red Sox suck....

26 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS the Yankees have...

ZERO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS the Boston Red Sox have...

The facts speak for themselves...I know who the better team is, and it's isn't the Red Sox.

SOUR GRAPES. That's what it's all about if your're a fan of a team that can't handle the fact that the Yankee's front office goes after and get's the best talent available, and WIN.

TALENT, and professionalism, is what win's world series.

At this point, and I heard this same comment echoed on a sports radio talk show last week is this; The Yankee's ARE a PRO team, they come to the game ready to play as professionals. The Red Sox, they are like a college frat house full of individuals with the personality quirks and they are not up to the task of winning this series against the Yankees.

It's NOT the Yankee's fault the Red Sox suck....

26 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS the Yankees have...

ZERO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS the Boston Red Sox have...

The facts speak for themselves...I know who the better team is, and it's isn't the Red Sox.

Why do you hate apostrophes so?

Oh, and for the record, I'd like to see the Yankees put together the same talent and professionalism on a salary cap. Buying the fastest car on the road doesn't make me a better driver, but I bet I'd win more races until everyone else had one.

SOUR GRAPES. That's what it's all about if your're a fan of a team that can't handle the fact that the Yankee's front office goes after and get's the best talent available, and WIN.

Whether or not it's sour grapes is beside the point. I simply don't understand how someone could be genuinely enthusiastic about the Yankees. The only reason I can imagine would be if the person was simply ignorant of the advantage the Yankees payroll is providing. If the person grew up a Yankee fan and had fond memories of his Yankee teams of childhood, he should embarrassed by the current team's excess.

To me, it's not about the Red Sox and whether they suck or not, it's about the inherent unfairness the Yankees thrive from. Bigger market allows them to operate at a profit while buying ridiculous amounts of talent. Other owners may have more personal money than King George, but no business should be expected to operate at a loss. NYY's market allows them to be an All-Star team. What's the interest in that? If you were watching a high school football team play a college team, how could you honestly cheer for the college team? The difference in skill level may be exagerrated in this example, but the principle is the same.

After game 2 of the Twins series, I saw a picture of Yankees fans heckling Joe Nathan (Twins) after he walked a couple of Yankees and was walking to the dugout. All I could think was, "How in the world could they honestly heckle this guy who is getting beat by a team with triple his team's payroll? It's just plain wrong."

I don't follow baseball much, though I am an rabid NBA and NFL fan. That being said, it's a travesity that there is no salary cap in baseball. When team's are allowed to spend 60 million more than the next closest payroll, how the hell do you expect parity in your sport? Team sports should be about talent, coaching, appraising talent, etc, not about who can write the biggest checks.

SPORTS & MONEY go hand in hand. Sports in our day and time of 2004 isn't just about the "game", but about business.

If you're a sports fan, and think it's not about the money, you're naive.

Do you think the "King George" is worrying about what other owners are doing with their payroll issues? If other owners can't or don't want to pony up the kind of cash for high dollar talent, is that Steinbrenner's problem?

MLB, NBA, and the other major sports ARE a business. And in business the owners that are in it are in it to make money, MILLIONS of dollars.

I don't think any sports owner of a team should be embarassed about being successful. Only losers are whining about what somebody else is spending because they don't have a winning team, or winning season.

IF Steinbrenner was doing something illegal or unethical, wouldn't you expect for the Commissioner of MLB to step in and put a stop to it?

The New York Yankees ARE one of the greatest dynasty's EVER in Major League Baseball. Love them, Hate them, it's undeniable.

SOUR GRAPES. That's what it's all about if your're a fan of a team that can't handle the fact that the Yankee's front office goes after and get's the best talent available, and WIN.

Uh, when you can go out and spend $21 million on A-Rod, $18 million on Jeter, and even $15 million on a washed up pitcher (Brown), then it's pretty easy to "go after and get the best talent available", don't ya think?

Tampa Bay's payroll is $30 million total (1/6 of the Yankees). How do you expect them to "go after and get the best talent available"?

The reason the Sox lost (or are going to lose) is not the Yankees have a higher payroll. Boston has plenty of money to buy talent for a championship. It's also not their relaxed manner either. Remember this is a Boston team that won only 3 fewer games than New York and wiped the floor with Anaheim in the ALDS. Also, the Sox have not been of this attitude for their entire existence. Just 20 or 30 more years ago they were more "hardcore" and stiff-nosed than the Yankees, and that didn't do them much good.

Who knows why they lose to the Yankees as much as they do, but I don't think you can point at one reason and say that's the one.

In 1903 the Boston Pilgrims won....I was just counting the titles won as the Red Soxs.

FYI...there is really a question of whether the team actually was ever called the Pilgrims, Somersets or Americans. Back in the early 1900's it was common for teams not to have team names and the local papers would use terms to distinquish the teams, especially if a city had two teams. During the 1903 season the Boston Herald used several names to refer to the team.

There were nine game accounts where no team name or nickname was used in either the headline or the text. The content analysis revealed that the name "Boston Americans" was used 57 times, while the term "Bostons" to describe the team was used in 54 game accounts. Interestingly, though, of the 54 game texts where "Bostons" was used in the story, 29 times the name "Boston Americans" was used in the headline or sub-head. The general impression is that the two terms were used fairly interchangeably, though with far more frequency than any other nicknames.

There were four game accounts in which the American League team was referred to as the "Beaneaters." There were two game accounts in which the only named characterization was "Bostonians" and there was one game account that referred to the team as the "Collinsites." There were a number of other collective phrases used as aggregate descriptors to "name" the team. These were:

the locals

Collins' club

the Boston side

Boston Club

Collins' men

Collins' tribe

men from the Hub

the Boston team

the local team

and, of course, simply "Boston"

That info comes from Bill Nowlin's article "The Boston Pilgrims Never Existed".

I don't think the money BS plays into it as much as some of you guys might think. Sure it helps, but the ability to judge talent needs to be there. While we're in NY, look at the Mets and Rangers. They spend tons of money and still suck (less for the Mets now). You need both. Anyone can spend 25M on A-Rod, but can you develop Jeter, Posada and Williams?

I HATE the Yankees but respect what they do and would LOVE to have George running the show here in Boston.

The Red Sox don't suck, they just aren't as good as the Yankees. EVER.

SPORTS & MONEY go hand in hand. Sports in our day and time of 2004 isn't just about the "game", but about business.

Yeah, so? NFL is about business but seems to be making plenty of money (more than MLB) without any one team dwarfing another in terms of ability to buy players.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

If you're a sports fan, and think it's not about the money, you're naive.

Those of us who have problems with the Yankees are not naive. Naive would be assuming that business sense cannot include competitive balance, as occurs very successfully in the NFL.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

Do you think the "King George" is worrying about what other owners are doing with their payroll issues?

No, I don't, and I don't expect him to. I never said anything of the sort. Although a case could be made for King George biting the hand that feeds him...not that I am making that case at the moment.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

If other owners can't or don't want to pony up the kind of cash for high dollar talent, is that Steinbrenner's problem?

This is a misleading question. First of all, it is Steinbrenner's problem to some extent. He needs competition to make money himself. And if other owners decided to reduce their payrolls to zilch, Steinbrenner would find his market surprisingly empty. So although my example is extreme. the fact remains that yes, Steinbrenner should be concerned with what other owners do. More importantly, your implication that other owners 'don't want to pony up the kind of cash for high dollar talent' is a typical naive interpretation. The 2 relevant points are:1) while some owners may be characterized as cheapskates, most cannot compete with Stein's pocketbooks. Whether an owner has $100billion in the bank or $1million in the bank is irrelevant to how much he should spend in terms of operating at a profit as opposed to a loss. Steinbrenner would have to sign half of MLB to operate at a loss, simply due to his market position; other MLB teams are not in this position.2) 'high dollar talent' is obviously a relative term. Unfortunately for MLB and baseball fans, 'high dollar talent' is defined by the Yankees almost exclusively. George could go out and offer Jose Lima a $100 million dollar 5-year contract, and afford it comfortably. The result of such a deal would cause market values of all players to skyrocket for all other teams. Unlike most industries, market values are not defined locally, so George's spending or willingness to spend defines what you call' high dollar talent'. The point is this: when one entity in the market has an inherent business advantage and is also able to define market values, you have a vicious circle of financial advantage. In a pure capitalist system, this is fine...but since MLB's product is competition, this is a problem.

I've seen countless Yankee fans complain that Sox fans have nothing to be upset about, considering the fact that the Sox are 2nd in payroll in MLB. Ignoring the important fact that the Sox are still $60M behind the Yankees, this complaint is still weak considering the fact that the Sox are forced to continuously raise payroll to compete with the practically infinite market of the Yankees. If they didn't, the same Yankee fans that accuse them of being second in payroll would accuse them of being cheap.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

MLB, NBA, and the other major sports ARE a business. And in business the owners that are in it are in it to make money, MILLIONS of dollars.

Yes, but these MILLIONS of dollars are, again, dependent on selling the product of COMPETITION.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

I don't think any sports owner of a team should be embarassed about being successful. Only losers are whining about what somebody else is spending because they don't have a winning team, or winning season.

I believe fans of the Yankees should be embarrassed by the fact that their current team has become an all-star team, and little more. I'd be embarrassed if my high school soccer team started dominating the league after recruiting all of the best players in the county by offering good grades.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

IF Steinbrenner was doing something illegal or unethical, wouldn't you expect for the Commissioner of MLB to step in and put a stop to it?

I never said he was acting illegally. I only said he has cheapened the team's success. That is not the commissioner's territitory.

Quote from: "JSHAW"

The New York Yankees ARE one of the greatest dynasty's EVER in Major League Baseball. Love them, Hate them, it's undeniable.

Sure. It's undeniable. But the way this classic team has evolved is disgusting.

I am not making excuses here...I am explaining how it is. The fact is that the MLB system is flawed (not the Yankees fault) and the Yankees are perfectly situated to exploit this flawed system. My original point therefore stands: cheering for the Yankees is gutless and pointless, and is cheering for a flawed MLB system based on financial superiority as opposed to athletic superiority. WAY more so than any other sport.

Anyone can spend 25M on A-Rod, but can you develop Jeter, Posada and Williams?

Aside from the fact that, as WestNile said, not anyone can spend 25M on A-Rod, plenty of teams CAN develop players of that calibre. However, the majority of teams cannot retain these players when they become productive when the Yankees are able to outbid all other teams for their services.

Much is made of the Yankees' clutch performance in October...but the financial ability to retain ALL Octboer clutch performers makes this characteristic of the Yankees unsurprising, while impossible for other teams (unless they are willing to operate their BUSINESS [as Yankee fans like to emphasize] at a loss).

"Aside from the fact that, as WestNile said, not anyone can spend 25M on A-Rod, plenty of teams CAN develop players of that calibre. However, the majority of teams cannot retain these players when they become productive when the Yankees are able to outbid all other teams for their services. "

Excellent point.

Many teams do develop great players. Many of the best of these players end up going to the Yankees, because their curent team can't offer the same amount of money.